Deep Purple - Fireball (1971)^{Release ID: 42972}

Released in 1971, ‘Fireball’ is the fifth studio album by British hard rock legends Deep Purple. After dabbling in psychedelic, orchestras, and heavy metal, the band are back to their hard rock, blues-inspired jamming. This is by no means a bad album, but fans seem a bit divided on this one, which is probably no surprise, as its position in Purple’s discography sits between two of their most iconic albums, ‘In Rock’ and ‘Machine Head’.

This is the third album to feature the classic Purple line-up, commonly referred to as “Mark 2”, and at this point there is an incredible chemistry between everyone. Each member displays remarkable prowess on their respective instrument, and it’s this dazzling musicianship and song-writing that really puts them at the top of the hard rock and heavy metal world.

Particular praise goes to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and vocalist Ian Gillan. Both members put on incredible and highly versatile performances. Both men are leaps and bounds above other guitarists and vocalists of the day.

Still, while this may not be anyone’s favourite Purple record, it does have a fair share of fantastic tunes! In particular, we have rockers like ‘Fireball’, ‘No One Came’ and ‘Demon’s Eye’, catchy andhumorous tracks like ‘Anyone’s Daugher’, and the big rock epic ‘Fools’. Later reissues of the album would feature great outtakes such as ‘Freedom’, and one of my favourite Deep Purple songs, ‘Strange Kind of Woman’.

‘Fireball’ may not have the same legacy and reputation as albums like ‘Machine Head’ and ‘In Rock’, but some great songs and musicianship warrants its place in anyone’s hard rock or heavy metal collection.

In Rock seems like something of an oddity in retrospect in how aggressive it was. Fireball corrects the deviation by putting itself quite firmly in the rock category. The title track is a fun number, but it stands firmly in rock, lacking any heaviness to it. 
Then as the album goes on, it gets very tedious. At least, the version I heard off Youtube, which seems to have a different track order from even the constantly shifting official releases. Most of side a seems to consist of mid-paced songs with drawn out choruses with a driving beat to them. And then we have a poor excuse of a folk song knockoff in Anyone's Daughter. Yawn.
But then what would have been side b shows up and the album redeems itself a bit. Bit more chaotic in tone, bit more like how Deep Purple should be. We even get a dry run of Smoke on the Water in No One Came.
This one seems to have a historical opinion of it about where it should be in my opinion. There are good bits, but for the most part, it's very meh.